document_title: List of That '70s Show characters

question_text: who is jackie's mom on that 70s show

question_tokens: who is jackie 's mom on that 70s show

text: List of That '70s Show characters

text: Main characters[edit]

text:
Eric Forman (portrayed by Topher Grace): The protagonist; Eric is a nice guy, generally geeky, physically slight, and somewhat clumsy. He is a smart-aleck with a fast wit and a deadpan sense of humor. He convinces his parents to let his best friend Steven Hyde move in with them, making Hyde like a brother. His father, Red, is always hard on him. Eric is in a relationship with his longtime love and neighbor Donna Pinciotti. He decides to become a teacher after high school, and he leaves the series at the end of the seventh season to teach in Africa, and returns at the series finale, reuniting with Donna.
Jackie Burkhart (portrayed by Mila Kunis): The youngest member of the group, Jackie starts the series as the pretty, rich, spoiled, selfish, conceited, and annoying immature girl. She likes to give thoughtless and superficial advice, which occasionally turns out to be correct. As the series progresses, she moves away from her self-centered ways and becomes sweeter. Partly as a result of these changes, she and Donna become better friends. By the end of the series, Jackie has dated three of the four males of the group: Kelso, Hyde, and Fez.
Michael Kelso (portrayed by Ashton Kutcher): The dim-witted pretty boy of the group who wants to coast through life on his good looks. He spends the first half of the series in a relationship with the equally vapid Jackie but their relationship comes to an end when Jackie wants to marry him and he isn't ready, so he runs away to California with Donna in the Season 4 finale. His best friend is Fez. He fathers a baby girl named Betsy during the seventh season. He becomes a police officer but gets kicked off the force because he does just about everything wrong. He gets a job as a security guard at a Playboy Club in Chicago, and leaves the series during the eighth and final season. He only appears in five episodes during season eight, including the series finale.
Steven Hyde (portrayed by Danny Masterson): Eric's best friend and the anti-establishment member of the group. By the end of season one, the Formans allow Hyde to move in after he was abandoned by his mother, making him a foster brother to Eric. Hyde has a witty, blunt, and sarcastic sense of humor, and a rebellious personality. He is also smart, and the other group members often ask for his advice. Although Hyde dates Jackie for three seasons, in the final season he marries an exotic dancer named Samantha. Hyde later discovers Samantha was still married when she married him. As Donna points out in "My Fairy King", that means Hyde and Samantha are not legally married. In the seventh season, Hyde meets his biological father (William Barnett, played by Tim Reid), a wealthy black businessman (making Hyde, who was presumed white, biracial). Barnett, who owns a chain of record stores, makes Hyde first the manager, and later the owner, of the Point Place store.
Donna Pinciotti (portrayed by Laura Prepon): Eric's longtime girlfriend (and briefly fiancée). Donna is intelligent, good-looking, and a feminist. Although she does not agree with what Jackie represents in the beginning of the series, they become friends. Donna is in a relationship with Eric for seven seasons (despite their break-up during season 4). She has brief romances with Casey, Michael's brother, and with Randy during the final season and quickly ends it. She rekindles her relationship with Eric at the end of the show's finale.
Fez (portrayed by Wilmer Valderrama): The foreign exchange student of the group whose hormones seem to be out of control. His secret country of origin is one of the longest-running gags on the show. He is sweet, friendly, perverted, gullible, and rather odd. He enjoys eating candy, drinking beer, and looking at pornography. His best friend is Kelso, and he shares a "younger brother" type relationship with Hyde and Eric. He constantly flirts with Jackie and Donna and often makes romantic advances toward them. Initially, he has a lot of trouble getting attention from girls, but during the eighth season he becomes a ladies' man. He is in love with Jackie throughout the series, but his love is not reciprocated until the eighth season when they become a couple.
Kitty Forman (portrayed by Debra Jo Rupp): Eric's mother and Red's wife, Kitty is a cheerful, doting mother, but can also be assertive when pushed. She is a nurse, and a former smoker. Her major mood swings are usually attributed to menopause. She is also a good mother figure to Eric's friends.
Red Forman (portrayed by Kurtwood Smith): Kitty's husband, Eric's and Laurie's father, and Hyde's adoptive father. Red is a Navy combat veteran, having served in World War II and the Korean War. Despite his mean exterior, Red occasionally displays a soft side. His hobbies include working with his power tools, drinking beer, watching television, reading the newspaper, hunting, and fishing.
Midge Pinciotti (portrayed by Tanya Roberts): Bob's wife, Donna's mother, and Kitty's best friend. Midge was the sexy neighborhood mom Eric and his male friends fantasized about when coming of age. Although often dim-witted, she is also a kind-hearted woman who develops feminist ideals. She and Bob divorce when she is written out of the series after the third season, however, returns during the sixth and seventh seasons in a recurring role where she and Bob almost reunite.
Bob Pinciotti (portrayed by Don Stark): Midge's husband, Donna's father. Bob often brags about his service in the National Guard, which invariably irritates Red. Bob is also known for walking around his house with his robe wide open and no underwear. He eats constantly, even in bed. Bob is almost always in a good mood and is a ladies' man. His best friend is Red, even though Red sees him as a nuisance. He usually takes the brunt of Red's abuse in a jolly manner.
Laurie Forman (portrayed by Lisa Robin Kelly/Christina Moore): Eric's beautiful but evil older sister. Laurie enjoys tormenting Eric and manipulating her parents. She is promiscuous, often seen with various men, mainly Eric's friend Kelso, who cheats on his girlfriend, Jackie. Eric, Hyde, and Donna often mock her promiscuity. She also has a strained relationship with her mother, who thinks of her as a freeloader. She leaves the series during the third season but returns in a recurring role during the fifth. In season five, she and Fez marry to prevent him from getting deported. In season six, she is portrayed by a different actress, Christina Moore.
Leo (portrayed by Tommy Chong): A hippie, and the owner of a Foto Hut at which Hyde once worked. Leo is an Army veteran who served in World War II, where he was awarded a Purple Heart. Leo often puts play before work and maintains an easy-going attitude in most things, business included. He disappears from the series after season four but is later referenced in season five's "The Battle of Evermore" when the gang goes on a mission to find him, but with no luck. He returns in season seven and remains on the series until the show's end. In season 8, he gets a new job working for Hyde at Grooves.
Randy Pearson (portrayed by Josh Meyers): The newest member of the group, who is introduced in the final season. Randy appears laid back, gentle, polite, and a ladies' man, although later many of his flaws surface. He forms a friendship with Red after showing Red how good he is at fixing things. While Hyde, Jackie, Donna, and Kelso accept him as a new member of their group, Fez does not. Randy dates Donna for the majority of season eight, but she eventually breaks up with him.

text: Recurring characters[edit]

text:
Suzy Simpson (played by Alyson Hannigan) appears in three episodes of season 6. She is Kelso's buddy from police academy who is also attracted to him. Fez has a crush on Suzy and it is because of her that he and Kelso fight after Kelso lies to Fez saying that Suzy has agreed to go on a date with him when really she thinks that she is dating Kelso.
Angie Barnett (played by Megalyn Echikunwoke) is Steven Hyde's half-sister. Hyde did not know he had a sister until the 7th season. Angie graduated from college as a mathematics major. Angie and Hyde worked together managing their father's record store, but Angie did not always like working with him. She dated Kelso, which sometimes annoyed Hyde. Angie got her name because, in the seventh season, all episodes were named after Rolling Stones songs, and "Angie" was a song by the Stones.
Annette Berkardt (played by Jessica Simpson) was Michael Kelso's girlfriend for a brief period of time in season 5. She acts and talks very similar to Jackie, constantly bossing Kelso around. Eric and Donna once referred to her as a blonde version of Jackie, or "Blackie." Despite this, Jackie and Annette hated each other. Once at The Hub, Jackie said to Annette "I did not know they let 'slutballs' in here". Annette said since she saw Jackie in there she thought it was okay. Later in the episode, when Annette and Kelso were kissing, Jackie yelled "Get off my boyfriend!" to Annette, even though it was months after Kelso and Jackie broke up. This led to Hyde wanting to break up with Jackie.
Beatrice Dorothy "Bea" Sigurdson (née Heprage) (played by Betty White) is Kitty Forman's mother. Bea seems like a friendly old lady, but is cold and critical, especially of Kitty. She appeared in a few episodes in season five, often nagging at Burt or saying something rude to Kitty in a faux-friendly manner. She was widowed in "Your Time is Gonna Come" when Burt collapses in the driveway and is rushed to the hospital where he dies. She stays with the Formans for a while after Burt's death.
Bernice Rose Forman (née Larson) (September 16, 1904 – January 22, 1977) (played by Marion Ross) is Red Forman's mother. Bernice hated Kitty, and she was always mean to her, because Red married Kitty instead of another woman Bernice liked. She appeared in the episodes "Sunday, Bloody Sunday", "The Best Christmas Ever" and "Grandma's Dead" of season 1, and flashback in the episode "Halloween" of season two. In the episode Grandma's Dead she dies in Eric's car while he is driving her home.
Brooke Leslie Rockwell (played by Shannon Elizabeth) was the valedictorian of the high school class two years before Eric's class. The summer after Kelso's graduation, she had sex with him at a Molly Hatchet concert in a bathroom stall and got pregnant. Initially, Brooke did not trust Kelso because of his immaturity and did not want him in the child's life. Eventually, Kelso convinced her to give him another chance. Brooke gave birth to their daughter, Betsy in 1979.
Steven James "Bud" Hyde Jr. (played by Robert Hays) is Steven Hyde's stepfather. Bud Hyde worked as a bartender and is an alcoholic. Until the end of the 6th season, Steven Hyde thought Bud was his biological father. Bud Hyde abandoned Steven when he was a child and Steven was always angry at Bud for this. They temporarily reconciled in season 3, with Hyde even moving in with him. However, he would leave again at the beginning of season 4 after getting back together with Edna – forcing Hyde to move back to the Forman house. Hyde mentioned that Bud did attempt to get in touch with him again. (Bud was passed out drunk on Hyde's car.)
Bertrum Wayne "Burt" Sigurdson (October 4, 1901- February 6, 1978) (played by Tom Poston) is Kitty Forman's father. He is often seen avoiding his wife, Bea. In one episode, he bought an ostrich farm, which was right next to a coyote farm. The coyotes ate all the ostriches and the Sigurdsons had to sell the house. Burt died in the episode Your Time is Gonna Come.
Caroline "Crazy Caroline" Dupree (played by Allison Munn) was Fez's girlfriend in season 3. Fez quickly learned Caroline is very jealous and paranoid. She made threats against Donna and Jackie because Caroline felt they were going to steal Fez from her, when in fact Jackie and Donna had no intention of doing so. Caroline was once found hiding in the men's bathroom looking for Fez. Fez did not want to be with someone that aggressive and paranoid so he broke up with her. Fez and Caroline were together one last time in the eighth season. She got extremely angry when she found out that Fez had lied to her about Jackie being his roommate, and when she found nude photos of Donna in Fez's Barry White album (Leo hid the nude photos in the album without Fez's knowledge, but Caroline believed they were put there by Fez). Caroline appeared again in "Sheer Heart Attack". Fez was having sex with women once and not seeing them again and then decided that he wanted to be with only one woman, so he called Caroline. Later in the episode, Jackie told Fez that she loved him and then kissed him as Caroline walked in. This, as always, made Caroline angry with Fez and attack him viciously.
Casey (played by Luke Wilson) is Michael Kelso's brother who was in the military. Towards the end of season 4 he was dating Donna Pinciotti. During their relationship, there were instances of them engaging in bad behavior, such as Donna drinking and skipping school to hang out with Casey. Donna's father, Bob, felt that Casey was a bad influence and did not want Donna to date him anymore. Eric was jealous of Casey because he wanted to be with Donna, so Eric wanted them to break up. When Red Forman and Bob were discussing Casey's negative influence with Donna and Casey, Casey broke up with Donna, deciding the conflict with Bob and Red to be too much hassle. Donna felt that she and Casey were in love, but Casey felt "I love you" is just something you could say and do not have to really mean. Michael Kelso said that his brother Casey got bored with his girlfriends and broke up with them. During the summer of 1979, Casey was teaching physical education at Eric's old high school, and Eric was in Casey's class. He likes to call Eric "Foreplay". his last episode was Season 7's 2120 So. Michigan Ave.
Charlie Richardson (played by Bret Harrison) is the son of one of Red's war buddies. Eric held a grudge against him from the time that he let some sick children win "Eric's" goldfish in an egg toss. Charlie only appeared in about three episodes towards the end of Season 7. Before the beginning of Season 8, Charlie accidentally fell off the water tower and died. The water tower is named the Charlie Richardson Memorial Water Tower in his honor. The original idea was to have Charlie stay on the show the entire 8th season as a replacement for Eric, but the actor got an offer for his own show so they killed his character off.
Christine St. George (played by Mary Tyler Moore) is a talk show host of What's Up Wisconsin. In the episode "Sweet Lady", Jackie felt she was destined to be Christine's co-host on the show. She persistently tries to get the job, but Christine St. George makes Jackie her assistant instead. After a few episodes, Jackie was fired for knowing too much about her.
Earl (played by Robert Clendenin) is a friend of Red's who worked for Red at Price Mart. Earl frequently came to work late and slacked off on his job, so Red fired him. After that, Earl sued Red for wrongful termination, however, Earl arrived too late to his own hearing, so the judge ruled in favor of Red. Later, Earl got a job working at a fast food restaurant, where he is again fired for his poor work ethic (this time for repeatedly eating the restaurant's food while on work). Earl appears in the episodes "Red Fired Up", "Roller Disco" and "Radio Daze".
Edna Hyde (played by Katey Sagal) is Steven Hyde's biological mother. She is only in the Season 1 episodes "Career Day", "Prom Night", and "Punk Chick", though she only appears in "Career Day". She plays a large part in "Career Day", playing opposite Hyde when on Career Day, he has to help her in the kitchen (she was the school chef, "Gross Edna" at the time). In other episodes she only has lines yelling at Hyde on the porch from the inside of the house such as:

In Prom Night Edna: "They're all gonna laugh at you!" (a reference to the 1976 film Carrie) Steven: "Shut up ma, you're makin' the night too damn special!"
In Punk Chick Steven: "It's still my suitcase!" Edna: "Nothing in this house is yours!" Steven: "Shut up!"

text:
Fenton, also known as Clerk in Season 5, (played by Jim Rash) is someone with whom Fez has a feud due to a "half-off sale, a crowded parking lot and a pair of pants that made Fez's ass look like an oil painting" in Fez's own words. In the fifth season, he was an employee at the jewelry store where Eric bought Donna's engagement ring. He is also the landlord of the apartment that Fez and Kelso moved into in the seventh season, which later became Fez and Jackie's apartment when Kelso moved to Chicago. At first, Fenton did not want to let Kelso and Fez move in because of his feud with Fez, but later when he found out Kelso wanted the apartment to have a place to take care of his daughter, and Fenton got the impression that Kelso and Fez were "life partners", he let them have it. Though Fenton does not state this explicitly, his frequent innuendos about men and his lack of experience with women imply he is gay. Whenever he sees Fez, he says "Oh, It's you" in an evil manner. Fenton later becomes good friends with Jackie, who persuades him not to evict Fez and end their feud when she accidentally floods their apartment.
Hilary Robinson (played by Lara Everly) is Fez's co-worker at the salon where Fez works in season 8. Fez tried to impress her by trying to look cool which intimidated her, but when Jackie explained to her who Fez really was, she fell in love with him. Fez and Hilary dated for a few weeks, before Hilary suddenly decided to become a nun and left Fez.
Jack Burkhart (played by Paul Kreppel) is the father of Jackie Burkhart. He was arrested for bribery and embezzling $60,000.
Joanne (played by Mo Gaffney) is a girlfriend of Bob Pinciotti, who appears in Seasons 4 and 5. She met Bob at the supermarket when Bob, being unable to cook, was about to buy a dozen TV dinners. Joanne decided to teach Bob to make a meatloaf so he would not have to buy the TV dinners. She does not get along well with Red. When Red and Joanne first met, they got into an argument about who would cook the meat and who would make the salad. Joanne works at the dog food factory and hires Eric to work there to put coupons in the dog food bags. Eric would eventually lose that job after Joanne broke up with Bob.
Mitch Miller (played by Seth Green) is a student in the same class as Eric. Mitch had a feud with Fez and because of this conflict, Mitch published a photo of Fez and Kelso kissing each other in the school newspaper. Mitch had a crush on Donna Pinciotti, and one time Donna went to a wedding with Mitch. Eric was angered when Mitch embarrassed Donna, and Eric and Mitch agreed to fight each other the next day at 5:15 PM. Not wanting to fight, Mitch persuaded Eric not to fight with him by offering him a French-made GI Joe called "GI Jacques". Mitch has a father, Charlie Miller, played by Fred Willard.
Nina Jo Bartell (played by Joanna Canton) is a girlfriend of Fez in season 5 who worked with him at the DMV. Fez lost his virginity to her, but it went badly, so she suggested they needed to do it more often to get better. They broke up a while later because Nina thought he was too needy.
Officer Phillip Otis Kennedy II (played by James Avery) is Kelso's training officer when he joins the police force. He appears mostly in the 6th season, playing a straight ace to the bumbling Kelso.
Pam Burkhart (played by Eve Plumb in Season 1 and Brooke Shields in Season 6) is the mother of Jackie Burkhart who was dating Bob Pinciotti in season 6. Once a serious business lady, she fled to Mexico when Jackie's councilman father was arrested for bribery and embezzling $60,000. She returned to try to fix her relationship between her and Jackie.
Pam Macy (played by Jennifer Lyons) is a classmate of the main characters of the show. She has been mentioned in more episodes than she appeared. She appeared in the episodes "Prom Night", "Romantic Weekend", and "It's a Wonderful life". In "Prom Night", Michael Kelso took Pam to the prom while temporarily broken up with Jackie. In "Romantic Weekend", Kelso was about to have sex with Pam but was unable to perform, telling his friends "The buffer wouldn't buff". Pam told this to the whole school, which caused everyone to tease Kelso about it.
Pastor Dave (played by Kevin McDonald), Pastor Dave is the local pastor at the church. He is overly cheerful and (incorrectly) thinks he is up to date with the trends, and is "hip and cool". He is often greeted by Eric and his friends with deadpan voices, and they typically just agree with Dave in the hopes he'll go away. Dave is good friends with Kitty, who helps with the church fundraisers, and has an uneasy friendship with Red (mostly because Red is not used to having friends). His friendship with Red seems to have brought out a less-pure side of Dave, as he spends a day with Red watching football and drinking beer, and once even quit the church because he wanted to watch more football on Sundays (he later rejoins as the pastor again). He appears primarily in Season 3 and 4, but has a few cameos in Season 2.
Rhonda (played by Cynthia Lamontagne) Often called Big Rhonda by her classmates, she was a recurring character during season 4. She was Fez's girlfriend during this season. When she and Fez were stuck in the school during a tornado, he was about to have sex with Big Rhonda, but after the tornado was gone, she did not want to anymore. She broke up with Fez after she choked him after he wanted to get to third base, which came from bad advice from Casey Kelso. Like Fez, she loves candy. The episode "It's a Wonderful Life" featured an alternate timeline, where Rhonda went to the prom with Eric (in this timeline, Eric and Donna were never in a relationship). Later in the same episode, she is seen at their 10-year reunion but now as a trim and beautiful woman (which Rhonda attributes to being dumped by a gigantic loser like Eric). It was also mentioned in the season three episode "Kitty's Birthday" that she was hit by a car but was apparently uninjured.
Roy Keen (played by Jim Gaffigan) is the kitchen manager of the Holliday Hotel who employed Eric, Hyde, and Kelso to work as waiters in the hotel's restaurant during seasons 5 and 6. The character serves as the replacement of Leo who was written out during season 5, although he had been absent for several episodes. It was mentioned by Hyde that Roy was like a father figure when his father abandoned him. Roy has stated that his standards for food service are low and he goes days without washing his hands. Roy served in the Vietnam War, once describing Eric as "scrawny, but strong... like the Vietcong". He suffers from serious trouble connecting to people. At one time he got the impression a woman was in love with him, after she insulted him when he got her some butter, and hid in her shower to surprise her with flowers. He once mentioned he was living with a woman, but moved out when she found out he was living with her in secret. It is revealed in the season 6 episode "A Legal Matter" that he was a police cadet who was oust of the police academy for shooting a police horse.
Samantha Hyde (played by Judy Tylor) is Hyde's wife during season 8. They got married while Hyde was drunk in Las Vegas. The two barely knew each other when they got married. Hyde did not even remember the wedding and did not know he was married until after Samantha came to Point Place to see Hyde. In the episode "My Fairy King", Hyde learned that Samantha was already married to someone else. After this, Hyde and Samantha's relationship ended.
Schatzie is a Dachshund that Red gave Kitty in an attempt to make her happy. Schatzie was in several episodes of season 5, was absent for all of season 6, then returned for only one episode towards the beginning of season 7. Red claimed that his absence was due to hiding under the house because he was afraid of the garden hose. "Schatzie" is German and means "little treasure" or "darling" (diminutive of "Schatz").
Timmy Thompson (played by Paul Connor) is a student who went to high school with Eric, Donna, Hyde, Fez, Kelso, and Jackie. To the annoyance of some of the gang, he announces comments to the room that start with "Heeey...", such as:

"Heeey, Forman and Donna got a motel room and they're going to do it!"
"Heeey, I'm taking off my pants!"
"Heeey, Forman's on a date with his mom!"
"Heeey, Donna's showed her ass!" (while showing everyone a yearbook photo where Donna mooned the camera).
He only has real dialogue in the episode "Burning Down The House".

William James "WB" Barnett (played by Tim Reid) is Steven Hyde's biological father. Hyde originally thought Bud Hyde was his biological father until the cliffhanger between the 6th and 7th seasons, where Kitty discovers that Steven's real father is a man who lives in Milwaukee. Sometimes people call William Barnett by his initials, WB. Barnett is wealthy and owns Grooves, a chain of record stores. Barnett put Steven in charge of the Point Place record store along with his daughter (and Hyde's half sister), Angie. Barnett is black, which Hyde believes explains his "coolness, afro and suspicion of the man" (it can also be noted that when Hyde asked him who killed Kennedy his father stated "I don't know, because they don't want me to know"). WB's last on-screen appearance is in the first half of the series finale which is the twenty-first episode of the eighth season, "Love of My Life" (WB had already appeared in the fourteenth episode of that season, "Son and Daughter").

text: Intended recurring roles[edit]

text: Several characters on the series were written as recurring, but made only one appearance. Among them:

text:
Tina Pinciotti (played by Amanda Fuller) was the younger sister of regular Donna Pinciotti. She first appeared in "Eric's Burger Job", but made no appearances following that, except for a brief mention in the episode "Vanstock". A similar situation occurred with unseen Valerie Pinciotti. The two are later written out with no explanation, as demonstrated in the season seven premiere, when Kitty refers to Donna as Bob and Midge's only daughter
Valerie Pinciotti was the older sister of Donna Pinciotti and Tina Pinciotti, who in "Eric's Birthday" was said to be away at college but never mentioned again.
Matthew and Rebecca Erdman (played by Kevin Farley and Shannon Holt) were the prudish host parents of Fez. They first appeared in "Drive-In" and convince Fez the rock they detest is diabolical by playing KISS album backwards. Fez's host parents make no further appearances in the show.
Buddy Morgan (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) was introduced in "Eric's Buddy", and was intended to become a recurring character. However, the introduction of homosexual Buddy as a love interest for Eric (at a time when both Eric and Hyde were competing for Donna) did not go over well with audiences, and Buddy was cut from the show.
Melissa (played by Reagan Gomez-Preston) appeared in "Hyde Gets the Girl" as a potential love interest for Hyde. She was intended to become his on-off girlfriend.
Patty (played by Lindsay Sloane) appeared in two episodes in the series' second season. She is introduced in "Eric Gets Suspended" along with her best friend, Mary (played by Melissa Joan Hart). The two go on a double blind date with Hyde and Fez. Hyde initially pairs with Mary, and Fez with Patty; but in the course of the date Hyde tells Fez to swap dates because he is hitting it off with Patty. Patty then returned in "Eric and Kitty's Night Out". In the episode, Fez and Patty become boyfriend and girlfriend. Patty's role and impact in the episode implies an intention to continue the character's appearance in the series. However, with no explanation in the show Patty is not seen or mentioned again.


document_title: List of solar eclipses visible from the United States

question_text: when was the last time there was a total solar eclipse in the us

root

text:
June 28, 1908

Annular
June 8, 1918

Total
November 22, 1919

Annular
September 10, 1923

Total

January 24, 1925

Total
June 29, 1927

Total
April 28, 1930

Hybrid
August 31, 1932

Total

April 19, 1939

Annular
April 7, 1940

Annular
February 4, 1943

Total
July 9, 1945

Total

May 9, 1948

Annular

tag: table

text:
September 1, 1951

Annular
June 30, 1954

Total
October 2, 1959

Total
July 20, 1963

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March 7, 1970

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July 10, 1972

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February 26, 1979

Total
May 30, 1984

Annular

July 22, 1990

Total
July 11, 1991

Total
January 4, 1992

Annular
May 10, 1994

Annular

text:
May 20, 2012[1]

Annular
August 21, 2017[2]

Total
October 14, 2023[3]

Annular
April 8, 2024[4]

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March 30, 2033[5]

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June 21, 2039[6]

Annular
August 23, 2044[7]

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August 12, 2045[8]

Total

February 5, 2046[9]

Annular
June 11, 2048[10]

Annular

text:
[show]

v
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Solar eclipses

Lists of eclipses

By century

Antiquity
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Saros series

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Visibility

Australia
China
Philippines
Russia
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United Kingdom
United States

Historical

Mursili's eclipse (1312 BC)
Assyrian eclipse (763 BC)
Eclipse of Thales (585 BC)

Total/hybrid eclipses

→ symbol denotes
next total/hybrid eclipse

1560 Aug 21
1598 Mar 7
1652 Apr 8
1654 Aug 12
1673 Aug 12
1699 Sep 23
1715 May 3
1724 May 22
1766 Feb 9
1778 Jun 24
1780 Oct 27
1806 Jun 16
1816 Nov 19
1824 Jun 26
1842 Jul 8
1851 Jul 28
1853 Nov 30
1857 Mar 25
1858 Sep 7
1860 Jul 18
1865 Apr 25
1867 Aug 29
1868 Aug 18
1869 Aug 7
1870 Dec 22
1871 Dec 12
1874 Apr 16
1875 Apr 6
1878 Jul 29
1882 May 17
1883 May 6
1885 Sep 8
1886 Aug 29
1887 Aug 19
1889 Jan 1
1889 Dec 22
1893 Apr 16
1896 Aug 9
1898 Jan 22
1900 May 28
1901 May 18
1903 Sep 21
1904 Sep 9
1905 Aug 30
1907 Jan 14
1908 Jan 3
1908 Dec 23
1909 Jun 17
1910 May 9
1911 Apr 28
1912 Apr 17
1912 Oct 10
1914 Aug 21
1916 Feb 3
1918 Jun 8
1919 May 29
1921 Oct 1
1922 Sep 21
1923 Sep 10
1925 Jan 24
1926 Jan 14
1927 Jun 29
1928 May 19
1929 May 9
1930 Apr 28
1930 Oct 21
1932 Aug 31
1934 Feb 14
1936 Jun 19
1937 Jun 8
1938 May 29
1939 Oct 12
1940 Oct 1
1941 Sep 21
1943 Feb 4
1944 Jan 25
1944 Jul 20
1945 Jul 9
1947 May 20
1948 Nov 1
1950 Sep 12
1952 Feb 25
1954 Jun 30
1955 Jun 20
1956 Jun 8
1957 Oct 23
1958 Oct 12
1959 Oct 2
1961 Feb 15
1962 Feb 5
1963 Jul 20
1965 May 30
1966 Nov 12
1967 Nov 2
1968 Sep 22
1970 Mar 7
1972 Jul 10
1973 Jun 30
1974 Jun 20
1976 Oct 23
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1979 Feb 26
1980 Feb 16
1981 Jul 31
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1984 Nov 22
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1986 Oct 3
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document_title: Video game console

question_text: when was the first video game console invented

text: Video game console

text: History

text: Overview of timeline

text:
Source
[note 1][note 2][note 3][note 4][note 5][note 6][note 7][note 8]

text: First generation

text: The first video games appeared in the 1960s.[15] They were played on massive computers connected to vector displays, not analog televisions. Ralph H. Baer conceived the idea of a home video game in 1951. In the late 1960s, while working for Sanders Associates, Baer created a series of video game console designs. One of these designs, which gained the nickname of the 1966 "Brown Box", featured changeable game modes and was demonstrated to several TV manufacturers, ultimately leading to an agreement between Sanders Associates and Magnavox.[16] In 1972, Magnavox released the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console which could be connected to a TV set. Ralph Baer's initial design had called for a huge row of switches that would allow players to turn on and off certain components of the console (the Odyssey lacked a CPU) to create slightly different games like tennis, volleyball, hockey, and chase. Magnavox replaced the switch design with separate cartridges for each game. Although Baer had sketched up ideas for cartridges that could include new components for new games, the carts released by Magnavox all served the same function as the switches and allowed players to choose from the Odyssey's built-in games.

tag: p

text: The Odyssey initially sold about 100,000 units,[17] making it moderately successful, and it was not until Atari's arcade game Pong popularized video games that the public began to take more notice of the emerging industry. By autumn 1975, Magnavox, bowing to the popularity of Pong, cancelled the Odyssey and released a scaled-down version that played only Pong and hockey, the Odyssey 100. A second, "higher end" console, the Odyssey 200, was released with the 100 and added on-screen scoring, up to four players, and a third game—Smash. Almost simultaneously released with Atari's own home Pong console through Sears, these consoles jump-started the consumer market. All three of the new consoles used simpler designs than the original Odyssey did with no board game pieces or extra cartridges. In the years that followed, the market saw many companies rushing similar consoles to market. After General Instrument released their inexpensive microchips, each containing a complete console on a single chip, many small developers began releasing consoles that looked different externally, but internally were playing exactly the same games. Most of the consoles from this era were dedicated consoles playing only the games that came with the console. These video game consoles were often just called video games, because there was little reason to distinguish the two yet. While a few companies like Atari, Magnavox, and newcomer Coleco pushed the envelope, the market became flooded with simple, similar video games.

text: Second generation

text: Home consoles

text: Fairchild released the Fairchild Video Entertainment System (VES) in 1976. While there had been previous game consoles that used cartridges, either the cartridges had no information and served the same function as flipping switches (the Odyssey) or the console itself was empty (Coleco Telstar) and the cartridge contained all of the game components. The VES, however, contained a programmable microprocessor so its cartridges only needed a single ROM chip to store microprocessor instructions. RCA and Atari soon released their own cartridge-based consoles, the RCA Studio II and the Atari 2600 (originally branded as the Atari Video Computer System), respectively.

text: Handheld game consoles

text: The first handheld game console with interchangeable cartridges was the Microvision designed by Smith Engineering, and distributed and sold by Milton-Bradley in 1979. Crippled by a small, fragile LCD display and a very narrow selection of games, it was discontinued two years later. The Epoch Game Pocket Computer was released in Japan in 1984. The Game Pocket Computer featured an LCD screen with 75 X 64 resolution, and could produce graphics at about the same level as early Atari 2600 games. The system sold very poorly, and as a result only five games were made for it. Nintendo's Game & Watch series of dedicated game systems proved more successful. It helped to establish handheld gaming as popular and lasted until 1991. Many Games & Watch games were later re-released on Nintendo's subsequent handheld systems.

text: Rebirth of the home console market

text: The VES continued to be sold at a profit after 1977, and both Bally (with their Home Library Computer in 1977) and Magnavox (with the Odyssey² in 1978) brought their own programmable cartridge-based consoles to the market. However, it was not until Atari released a conversion of the golden age arcade hit Space Invaders in 1980 for the Atari 2600 that the home console industry took off. Many consumers bought an Atari console so they could play Space Invaders at home. The unprecedented success of Space Invaders started the trend of console manufacturers trying to get exclusive rights to arcade titles, and the trend of advertisements for game consoles claiming to bring the arcade experience home. Throughout the early 1980s, other companies released video game consoles of their own. Many of the video game systems (e.g. ColecoVision) were technically superior to the Atari 2600, and marketed as improvements over the Atari 2600. However, Atari dominated the console market in the early 1980s.

text: North American video game crash of 1983

text: In 1983, the video game business suffered a much more severe crash. A flood of low-quality video games by smaller companies (especially for the 2600), industry leader Atari hyping games such as E.T and a 2600 version of Pac-Man that were poorly received, and a growing number of home computer users caused consumers and retailers to lose faith in video game consoles. Most video game companies filed for bankruptcy, or moved into other industries, abandoning their game consoles. A group of employees from Mattel Electronics formed the INTV Corporation and bought the rights for the Intellivision. INTV alone continued to manufacture the Intellivision in small quantities and release new Intellivision games until 1991. All other North American game consoles were discontinued by 1984. Revenues generated by the video game industry fell by 97% during the crash.

text: Third generation

text: Home consoles

text: In 1983, Nintendo released the Family Computer (or Famicom) in Japan. The Famicom supported high-resolution sprites, larger color palettes, and tiled backgrounds. This allowed Famicom games to be longer and have more detailed graphics. Nintendo began attempts to bring their Famicom to the U.S. after the video game market had crashed. In the U.S., video games were seen as a fad that had already passed. To distinguish its product from older game consoles, Nintendo released their Famicom as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) which used a front-loading cartridge port similar to a VCR, included a plastic "robot" (R.O.B.), and was initially advertised as a toy. The NES was the highest selling console in the history of North America and revitalized the video game market. Mario of Super Mario Bros. became a global icon starting with his NES games. Nintendo took a somewhat unusual stance with third-party developers for its console. Nintendo contractually restricted third-party developers to three NES titles per year and forbade them from developing for other video game consoles. The practice ensured Nintendo's market dominance and prevented the flood of trash titles that had helped kill the Atari, but was ruled illegal late in the console's life cycle.

text: Sega's Master System was intended to compete with the NES, but never gained any significant market share in the US or Japan and was barely profitable. It fared notably better in PAL territories. In Europe and South America, the Master System competed with the NES and saw new game releases even after Sega's next-generation Mega Drive was released. In Brazil where strict importation laws and rampant piracy kept out competitors, the Master System outsold the NES by a massive margin and remained popular into the 1990s.[18] Jack Tramiel, after buying Atari, downsizing its staff, and settling its legal disputes, attempted to bring Atari back into the home console market. Atari released a smaller, sleeker, cheaper version of their popular Atari 2600. They also released the Atari 7800, a console technologically comparable with the NES and backwards compatible with the 2600. Finally Atari repackaged its 8-bit XE home computer as the XEGS game console. The new consoles helped Atari claw its way out of debt, but failed to gain much market share from Nintendo. Atari's lack of funds meant that its consoles saw fewer releases, lower production values (both the manuals and the game labels were frequently black and white), and limited distribution. Additionally two popular 8-bit computers, the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC, were repackaged as the Commodore 64 Games System and Amstrad GX4000 respectively, for entry into the console market.

text:
Japan
North America
Europe
Units sold

Famicom/NES
1983
1985
1986
61,910,000

Mark III/Master System
1985
1986
1987
13,000,000

Atari 7800
none
1986
1987
3,770,000

Atari XEGS
none
1987
1987
100,000

text: Handheld game consoles

text: In the later part of the third generation, Nintendo also introduced the Game Boy, which almost single-handedly solidified and then proceeded to dominate the previously scattered handheld market for 15 years. While the Game Boy product line was incrementally updated every few years, until the Game Boy Micro and Nintendo DS, and partially the Game Boy Color, all Game Boy products were backwards compatible with the original released in 1989. Since the Game Boy's release, Nintendo had dominated the handheld market.

text: Fourth generation

text: Home consoles

text: NEC brought the first fourth-generation console to market with their PC Engine (or TurboGrafx16) when Hudson Soft approached them with an advanced graphics chip. Hudson had previously approached Nintendo, only to be rebuffed by a company still raking in the profits of the NES. The TurboGrafx used the unusual HuCard format to store games. The small size of these proprietary cards allowed NEC to re-release the console as a handheld game console. The PC Engine enjoyed brisk sales in Japan, but its North American counterpart, the TurboGrafx, lagged behind the competition. The console never saw an official release in Europe, but clones and North American imports were available in some markets starting in 1990. NEC advertised their console as "16-bit" to highlight its advances over the NES. This started the trend of all subsequent fourth generations consoles being advertised as 16 bit. Many people still refer to this generation as the 16-bit generation, and often refer to the third generation as "8-bit".

text: Sega scaled down and adapted their Sega System 16 (used to power arcade hits like Altered Beast and Shinobi) into the Mega Drive (sold as the Genesis in North America) and released it with a near arcade-perfect port of Altered Beast. Sega's console met lukewarm sales in Japan, but skyrocketed to first place in PAL markets, and made major inroads in North America. Propelled by its effective "Genesis does what Nintendon't" marketing campaign, Sega capitalized on the Genesis's technological superiority over the NES, faithful ports of popular arcade games, and competitive pricing. The arcade gaming company SNK developed the high end Neo Geo MVS arcade system which used interchangeable cartridges similar to home consoles. Building on the success of the MVS, SNK repackaged the NeoGeo as the Neo Geo AES home console. Though technologically superior to the other fourth-generation consoles, the AES and its games were prohibitively expensive, which kept sales low and prevented it from expanding outside its niche market and into serious competition with Nintendo and Sega. The AES did, however, amass a dedicated cult following, allowing it to see new releases into the 2000s. Fourth generation graphics chips allowed these consoles to reproduce the art styles that were becoming popular in arcades and on home computers. These games often featured lavish background scenery, huge characters, broader color pallettes, and increased emphasis on dithering and texture. Games written specifically for the NES, like Megaman, Shatterhand, and Super Mario Bros. 3 were able to work cleverly within its limitations. Ports of the increasingly detailed arcade and home computer games came up with various solutions. For example, when Capcom released Strider in the arcade they created an entirely separate Strider game for the NES that only incorporated themes and characters from the arcade.

text: In 1990, Nintendo finally brought their Super Famicom to market and brought it to the United States as the Super NES (SNES) a year later. Its release marginalized the TurboGrafx and the Neo Geo, but came late enough for Sega to sell several million consoles in North America and gain a strong foothold. The same year the SNES was released Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog, which spiked Genesis sales, similar to Space Invaders on the Atari. Also, by 1992 the first fully licensed NFL Football game was released: NFL Sports Talk Football '93, which was available only on the Genesis. This impact on Genesis sales, and the overall interest of realistic sports games, would start the trend of licensed sports games being viewed as necessary for the success of a console in the US. While Nintendo enjoyed dominance in Japan, and Sega in Europe, the competition between the two was particularly fierce and close in North America. Ultimately, the SNES outsold the Genesis, but only after Sega discontinued the Genesis to focus on the next generation of consoles.

text: One trait that remains peculiar to the fourth generation is the huge number of exclusive games. Both Sega and Nintendo were very successful and their consoles developed massive libraries of games. Both consoles had to be programmed in assembly to get the most out of them. A game optimized for the Genesis could take advantage of its faster CPU and sound chip. A game optimized for the SNES could take advantage of its graphics and its flexible, clean sound chip. Some game series, like Castlevania, saw separate system exclusive releases rather than an attempt to port one game to disparate platforms. When compact disc (CD) technology became available midway through the fourth generation, each company attempted to integrate it into their existing consoles in different ways. NEC and Sega released CD add-ons to their consoles in the form of the TurboGrafx-CD and Sega CD, but both were only moderately successful. NEC also released the TurboDuo which combined the TurboGrafx-16 and its TurboGrafx-CD add-on (along with the RAM and BIOS upgrade from the Super System Card) into one unit. SNK released a third version of the NeoGeo, the Neo Geo CD, allowing the company to release its games on a cheaper medium than the AES's expensive cartridges, but it reached the market after Nintendo and Sega had already sold tens of millions of consoles each. Nintendo partnered with Sony to work on a CD add-on for the SNES, but the deal fell apart when they realized how much control Sony wanted. Sony would use their work with Nintendo as the basis for their PlayStation game console. While CDs became an increasingly visible part of the market, CD-reading technology was still expensive in the 1990s, limiting NEC's and Sega's add-ons' sales.

text:
Japan
North America
Europe
Units sold

PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16
1987
1989
1989
10,000,000

Mega Drive/Genesis
1988
1989
1990
40,000,000

Neo Geo
1991
1991
1994
980,000

Super Famicom/Super NES
1990
1991
1992
49,100,000

LaserActive
1993
1993
none
10,000

text: Handheld game consoles

text: The first handheld game console released in the fourth generation was the Game Boy, on April 21, 1989. It went on to dominate handheld sales by an extremely large margin, despite featuring a low-contrast, unlit monochrome screen while all three of its leading competitors had color. Three major franchises made their debut on the Game Boy: Tetris, the Game Boy's killer application; Pokémon; and Kirby. With some design (Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light) and hardware (Game Boy Color) changes, it continued in production in some form until 2008, enjoying a better than 18-year run. The Atari Lynx included hardware-accelerated color graphics, a backlight, and the ability to link up to sixteen units together in an early example of network play when its competitors could only link 2 or 4 consoles (or none at all),[19] but its comparatively short battery life (approximately 4.5 hours on a set of alkaline cells, versus 35 hours for the Game Boy), high price, and weak games library made it one of the worst-selling handheld game systems of all time, with less than 500,000 units sold.[20][21]

text: The third major handheld of the fourth generation was the Game Gear. It featured graphics capabilities roughly comparable to the Master System (better colours, but lower resolution), a ready made games library by using the "Master-Gear" adaptor to play cartridges from the older console, and the opportunity to be converted into a portable TV using a cheap tuner adaptor, but it also suffered some of the same shortcomings as the Lynx. While it sold more than twenty times as many units as the Lynx, its bulky design - slightly larger than even the original Game Boy; relatively poor battery life - only a little better than the Lynx; and later arrival in the marketplace - competing for sales amongst the remaining buyers who didn't already have a Game Boy - hampered its overall popularity despite being more closely competitive to the Nintendo in terms of price and breadth of software library.[22] Sega eventually retired the Game Gear in 1997, a year before Nintendo released the first examples of the Game Boy Color, to focus on the Nomad and non-portable console products. Other handheld consoles released during the fourth generation included the TurboExpress, a handheld version of the TurboGrafx-16 released by NEC in 1990, and the Game Boy Pocket, an improved model of the Game Boy released about two years before the debut of the Game Boy Color. While the TurboExpress was another early pioneer of color handheld gaming technology and had the added benefit of using the same game cartridges or 'HuCards' as the TurboGrafx16, it had even worse battery life than the Lynx and Game Gear - about three hours on six contemporary AA batteries - selling only 1.5 million units.[21]

text: Fifth generation

text: During this time home computers gained greater prominence as a way of playing video games. The gaming console industry nonetheless continued to thrive alongside home computers, due to the advantages of much lower prices, easier portability, circuitry specifically dedicated towards gaming, the ability to be played on a television set (which PCs of the time could not do in most cases), and intensive first party software support from manufacturers who were essentially banking their entire future on their consoles.[23]

text: Home consoles

text: The first fifth-generation consoles were the 3DO and the Atari Jaguar. Although both consoles were more powerful than the fourth generation systems, neither would become serious threats to Sega or Nintendo. The 3DO initially generated a great deal of hype in part because of a licensing scheme where 3DO licensed the manufacturing of its console out to third parties, similar to VCR or DVD players. However, unlike its competitors who could sell their consoles at a loss, all 3DO manufacturers had to sell for profit. The cheapest 3DO was more expensive than the SNES and Genesis combined. The Jaguar had three processors and no C libraries to help developers cope with it. Atari was ineffective at courting third parties and many of their first party games were poorly received. Many of the Jaguar's games used mainly the slowest (but most familiar) of the console's processors, resulting in titles that could easily have been released on the SNES or Genesis.

text: To compete with emerging next gen consoles, Nintendo released Donkey Kong Country which could display a wide range of tones (something common in fifth-generation games) by limiting the number of hues onscreen, and Star Fox which used an extra chip inside of the cartridge to display polygon graphics. Sega followed suit, releasing Vectorman and Virtua Racing (the latter of which used the Sega Virtua Processor). Sega also released the 32X, an add-on for the Genesis, while their Sega Saturn was still in development. Despite public statements from Sega claiming that they would continue to support the Genesis/32X throughout the next generation, Sega Enterprises forced Sega of America to abandon the 32X. The 32X's brief and confusing existence damaged public perception of the coming Saturn and Sega as a whole.

text: While the fourth generation had seen NEC's TurboGrafx-CD and Sega's Sega CD add-ons, it was not until the fifth generation that CD-based consoles and games began to seriously compete with cartridges. CD-ROMs were significantly cheaper to manufacture and distribute than cartridges were, and gave developers room to add cinematic cut-scenes, pre-recorded soundtracks, and voice acting that made more serious storytelling possible. NEC had been developing a successor to the TurboGrafx-16 as early as 1990, and presented a prototype, dubbed the "Iron Man," to developers in 1992, but shelved the project as the CD-ROM² System managed to extend the console's market viability in Japan into the mid-90s. When sales started to dry up, NEC rushed its old project to the market. The PC-FX, a CD-based, 32-bit console, had highly advanced, detailed 2D graphics capabilities, and better full-motion video than any other system on the market. It was, however, incapable of handling 3D graphics, forfeiting its chances at seriously competing with Sony and Sega. The console was limited to a niche market of dating sims and visual novels in Japan, and never saw release in Western markets.

text: After the abortive 32X, Sega entered the fifth generation with the Saturn. Sega released several highly regarded titles for the Saturn, but a series of bad decisions alienated many developers and retailers. While the Saturn was technologically advanced, it was also complex, difficult, and unintuitive to write games for. In particular, programming 3D graphics that could compete with those on Nintendo and Sony's consoles proved exceptionally difficult for third-party developers. Because the Saturn used quadrilaterals, rather than standard triangles, as its basic polygon, cross platform games had to be completely rewritten to see a Saturn port. The Saturn was also a victim of internal politics at Sega. While the Saturn sold comparably well in Japan, Sega's branches in North America and Europe refused to license localizations of many popular Japanese titles, holding they were ill-suited to Western markets. First-party hits like Sakura Taisen never saw Western releases, while several third-party titles released on both PlayStation and Saturn in Japan, like Grandia and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, were released in North America and Europe as PlayStation exclusives.

text: Born from a failed attempt to create a console with Nintendo, Sony's PlayStation would not only dominate its generation, but become the first console to sell over 100 million units by expanding the video game market. Sony actively courted third parties and provided them with convenient c libraries to write their games. Sony had built the console from the start as a 3D, disc-based system, and emphasized its 3D graphics that would come to be viewed as the future of gaming. The PlayStation's CD technology won over several developers who had been releasing titles for Nintendo and Sega's fourth generation consoles, such as Konami, Namco, Capcom, and Square. CDs were far cheaper to manufacture and distribute than cartridges were, meaning developers could release larger batches of games at higher profit margins; Nintendo's console, on the other hand, used cartridges, unwittingly keeping third-party developers away. The PlayStation's internal architecture was simpler and more intuitive to program for, giving the console an edge over Sega's Saturn.

text: Nintendo was the last to release a fifth generation console with their Nintendo 64, and when they finally released their console in North America, it came with only two launch titles. Partly to curb piracy and partly as a result of Nintendo's failed disc projects with Sony and Philips, Nintendo used cartridges for their console. The higher cost of cartridges drove many third party developers to the PlayStation. The Nintendo 64 could handle 3D polygons better than any console released before it, but its games often lacked the cut-scenes, soundtracks, and voice-overs that became standard on PlayStation discs. Nintendo released several highly acclaimed titles, such as Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and the Nintendo 64 was able to sell tens of millions of units on the strength of first-party titles alone, but its constant struggles against Sony would make the Nintendo 64 the last home console to use cartridges as a medium for game distribution.

text:
Japan
North America
Europe
Units sold

FM Towns Marty
1993
none
none
45,000

Atari Jaguar
1994
1993
1994
250,000

3DO
1994
1993
1994
2,000,000

PC-FX
1994
none
none
400,000

Sega 32X
1994
1994
1995
665,000

Virtual Boy
1995
1995
none
770,000

Sega Saturn
1994
1995
1995
9,260,000

PlayStation
1994
1995
1995
102,490,000

Nintendo 64
1996
1996
1997
32,930,000

text: Handheld game consoles

text:
Sega Nomad
Released in 1995[24]

Game Boy Pocket
Released in 1996

Game.com
Released in September 1997

Game Boy Light
Released in April 1998

Game Boy Color
Released in November 1998[25]

Neo Geo Pocket
Released in 1998[citation needed]

tag: ul

text: Sixth generation

text: Home consoles

text: The sixth generation witnessed a shift towards using DVDs for video game media. This brought games that were both longer and more visually appealing. Adding furthermore features with online console gaming and implementing both flash and hard drive storage for game data.

text: Sega's Dreamcast, the first console with a built-in modem, was released in Japan on November 27, 1998. The Dreamcast initially underperformed in Japan; while interest was initially strong, the company was forced to stop taking preorders due to manufacturing issues, and the system underperformed its sales expectations, with reports of disappointed customers returning Dreamcast consoles to buy Playstation games and peripherals.

text:
Sony's PlayStation 2 was released in Japan on March 4, 2000, in North America on October 26, 2000, in Europe on November 24, 2000 and in Australia on November 30, 2000. It was the follow-up to its highly successful PlayStation, and was also the first home game console to be able to play DVDs. As was done with the original PlayStation in 2000, Sony redesigned the console in 2004 into a smaller version. As of November 21, 2011 over 140 million PlayStation 2 units have been sold.[27][28] This makes it the best selling home console of all time to date.
Nintendo's GameCube was released in Japan on September 15, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002 and in Australia on May 17, 2002. It was Nintendo's fourth home video game console and the first console by the company to use optical media instead of cartridges. The GameCube did not play standard 12 cm DVDs, instead it employed smaller 8 cm optical discs. With the release of the GameCube Game Boy Player, all Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridges could be played on the platform. The GameCube was discontinued in 2007 with the release of Wii.
Microsoft's Xbox was the first dedicated video games console released by the company in North America on November 15, 2001, in Japan on February 22, 2002, and in Europe and Australia on March 14, 2002. Microsoft realized the power of video game consoles and feared with growing capabilities they may take over more than the living room. It was the first console to employ a hard drive right out of the box to save games, the first to include an Ethernet port for broadband internet, and the beginning of Microsoft's online Xbox LIVE service. Microsoft was able to attract many PC developers by using the NT kernel and DirectX from their Windows operating system. Though criticized for its bulky size and the awkwardness of its original controller, the Xbox eventually gained popularity, especially in the US, where it outsold the GameCube to secure second place, due in part to the success of the Halo franchise.

text:
Japan
North America
Europe
Units sold

Dreamcast
1998
1999
1999
9,130,000

PlayStation 2
2000
2000
2000
155,000,000

GameCube
2001
2001
2002
21,740,000

Xbox
2002
2001
2002
24,000,000

text: Handheld game consoles

text: During the sixth generation era, the handheld game console market expanded with the introduction of new devices from many different manufacturers. Nintendo maintained its dominant share of the handheld market with the release in 2001 of the Game Boy Advance, which featured many upgrades and new features over the Game Boy. Two redesigns of this system followed, the Game Boy Advance SP in 2003 and the Game Boy Micro in 2005. Also introduced were the Neo Geo Pocket Color in 1998 and Bandai's WonderSwan Color, launched in Japan in 1999. South Korean company Game Park introduced its GP32 handheld in 2001, and with it came the dawn of open source handheld consoles. The Game Boy Advance line of handhelds has sold 81.51 million units worldwide as of September 30, 2010.[29]

text: A major new addition to the market was the trend for corporations to include a large number of "non-gaming" features into their handheld consoles, including cell phones, MP3 players, portable movie players, and PDA-like features. The handheld that started this trend was Nokia's N-Gage, which was released in 2003 and doubled primarily as a mobile phone. It went through a redesign in 2004 and was renamed the N-Gage QD. A second handheld, the Zodiac from Tapwave, was released in 2004; based on the Palm OS, it offered specialized gaming-oriented video and sound capabilities, but it had an unwieldy development kit due to the underlying Palm OS foundation. With more and more PDAs arriving during the previous generation, the difference between consumer electronics and traditional computing began to blur and cheap console technology grew as a result. It was said of PDAs that they were "the computers of handheld gaming" because of their multi-purpose capabilities and the increasingly powerful computer hardware that resided within them. This capability existed to move gaming beyond the last generation's 16-bit limitations; however, PDAs were still geared towards the typical businessman, and lacked new, affordable software franchises to compete with dedicated handheld gaming consoles.

text: Seventh generation

text: Video game consoles had become an important part of the global IT infrastructure. It is estimated that video game consoles represented 25% of the world's general-purpose computational power in the year 2007.[30]

text: Home consoles

text: The features introduced in this generation include the support of new disc formats: Blu-ray Disc, utilized by the PlayStation 3, and HD DVD supported by the Xbox 360 via an optional $200 external accessory addition, that was later discontinued as the format war closed. Another new technology is the use of motion as input, and IR tracking (as implemented on the Wii). Also, all seventh generation consoles support wireless controllers. This generation also introduced the Nintendo DS, and the Nintendo DSi, which brought touch screens into the mainstream for and added cameras to portable gaming.

text: Microsoft kicked off the seventh generation with the release of the Xbox 360 on November 22, 2005 in the United States, December 2, 2005 in Europe, December 10, 2005 in Japan and March 23, 2006 in Australia. It featured market-leading processing power until the Sony PlayStation 3 was released one year later. While the original Xbox 360 "Core" did not include an internal HDD, most Xbox 360 models since have included at least the option to have one. The Xbox 360 optical drive is a DVD9 reader, allowing DVD movies to be played. No Blu-ray drive was included, making big games like Battlefield and Wolfenstein: The New Order require two or more DVDs to play. Up to four controllers can be connected to the console wirelessly on the standard 2.4 GHz spectrum. There are 4 discontinued versions of the Xbox 360: the "Arcade," the "Pro," and the "Elite," and the newer "S" or 'slim' model. The "E" version of the Xbox 360 included 3 configurations: a 4GB internal SSD version which acts like a USB hard drive, a 250 GB HDD version, and a branded 320 GB HDD version. The Xbox 360 is backward compatible with about half the games of the original Xbox library. In 2010, Microsoft released Kinect, allowing for motion-controlled games. The Xbox 360 was discontinued on April 20, 2016.

text: Sony's PlayStation 3 was released in Japan on November 11, 2006, in North America on November 17, 2006 and in Europe and Australia on March 23, 2007. All PlayStation 3's come with a hard drive and are able to play Blu-ray Disc games and Blu-ray Disc movies out of the box. The PlayStation 3 was the first video game console to support HDMI output out of the box, using full 1080p resolution. Up to seven controllers can connect to the console using Bluetooth. There are 6 discontinued versions of the PS3: a 20 GB HDD version (discontinued in North America and Japan, and was never released in PAL territories), a 40 GB HDD version (discontinued), a 60 GB HDD version (discontinued in North America, Japan and PAL territories), 80 GB HDD version (only in some NTSC territories and PAL territories), a "slim" 120GB HDD version (discontinued), and a "slim" 250 GB version (discontinued). The two current shipping versions of the PlayStation 3 are: a "slim" 160 GB HDD version and a "slim" 320 GB HDD version. The hard drive can be replaced with any standard 2.5" Serial ATA drive and the system has support for removable media storage, such as Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo, USB, SD, MiniSD, and CompactFlash (CF) digital media, but only the PlayStation versions up to 80 GB support this. The slim PlayStation 3 consoles (120 GB and up) had removable storage discontinued.[31] All models are backward compatible with the original PlayStation's software library, and the launch models, since discontinued, are also backward compatible with PlayStation 2 games. As a cost-cutting measure, later models removed the Emotion Engine, making them incompatible with PlayStation 2 discs. In 2010, Sony released PlayStation Move, allowing for motion-controlled games. With recent software updates, the PlayStation 3 can play 3D Blu-ray movies and 3D games.

text: Nintendo's Wii was released in North America on November 19, 2006, in Japan on December 2, 2006, in Australia on December 7, 2006 and in Europe on December 8, 2006. It is bundled with Wii Sports in all regions except for Japan. Unlike the other systems of the seventh generation, the Wii does not support an internal hard drive, but instead uses 512 MB of internal Flash memory and includes support for removable SD card storage. It also has a maximum resolution output of 480p, making it the only seventh generation console not able to output high-definition graphics. Along with its lower price, the Wii is notable for its unique controller, the Wii Remote, which resembles a TV remote. The system uses a "sensor bar" that emits infrared light that is detected by an infrared camera in the Wii Remote to determine orientation relative to the source of the light. All models, other than the Wii Family Edition and the Wii Mini, are backwards compatible with GameCube games and support up to four GameCube controllers and two memory cards. It also includes the Virtual Console, which allows the purchase and downloading of games from older systems, including those of former competitors. In 2009, Nintendo introduced the 'Wii MotionPlus' expansion, which uses the same technology as the console previously used, but with enhanced motion tracking and sensing to improve gameplay quality. The Wii has four colors: white, blue, black, and red. Current models include Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, and Wii Motion Plus.

text:
Japan
North America
Europe
Units sold

Xbox 360
2005
2005
2005
84,700,000

PlayStation 3
2006
2006
2007
85,900,000

Wii
2006
2006
2006
101,630,000

text: Handheld game consoles

text: For handheld game consoles, the seventh generation began with the release of the Nintendo DS on November 21, 2004. This handheld was based on a design fundamentally different from the Game Boy and other handheld video game systems. The Nintendo DS offered new modes of input over previous generations such as a touch screen, the ability to connect wirelessly using IEEE 802.11b, as well as a microphone to speak to in-game NPCs.[32] On December 12, 2004, Sony released its first handheld, PlayStation Portable (PSP). The PlayStation Portable was marketed at launch to an above 25-year-old[33] or "core gamer" market,[34] while the Nintendo DS proved to be popular with both core gamers and new customers.[35] Nokia revived its N-Gage platform in the form of a service for selected S60 devices. This new service launched on April 3, 2008.[36] Other less-popular handheld systems released during this generation include the Gizmondo (launched on March 19, 2005 and discontinued in February 2006) and the GP2X (launched on November 10, 2005 and discontinued in August 2008). The GP2X Wiz, Pandora, and Gizmondo 2 were scheduled for release in 2009. Another aspect of the seventh generation was the beginning of direct competition between dedicated handheld gaming devices, and increasingly powerful PDA/cell phone devices such as the iPhone and iPod Touch, and the latter being aggressively marketed for gaming purposes. Simple games such as Tetris and Solitaire had existed for PDA devices since their introduction, but by 2009 PDAs and phones had grown sufficiently powerful to where complex graphical games could be implemented, with the advantage of distribution over wireless broadband.

text:
Japan
North America
Europe
Units sold

Nintendo DS
2004
2004
2005
154,020,000

PlayStation Portable
2004
2005
2005
82,000,000

text: Eighth generation

text: Home consoles

text: Aside from the usual hardware enhancements, consoles of the eighth generation focus on further integration with other media and increased connectivity.[39] The Wii U introduced a controller/tablet hybrid whose features include the possibility of augmented reality in gaming.[40] The PlayStation 4 is Sony's eighth generation console, featuring a "share" button to stream video game content between devices, released on November 15, 2013. Microsoft released their next generation console, the Xbox One, on November 22, 2013.[41] On March 3, 2017, following poor sales of the Wii U, Nintendo released the Nintendo Switch, a 'hybrid' console consisting of a tablet with controller attachments that can be used as a mobile device or connected to a television via a dock.

text: Game systems in the eighth generation also faced increasing competition from mobile device platforms such as Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating systems. Smartphone ownership was estimated to reach roughly a quarter of the world's population by the end of 2014.[42] The proliferation of low-cost games for these devices, such as Angry Birds with over 2 billion downloads worldwide,[43] presents a new challenge to classic video game systems. Microconsoles, cheaper stand-alone devices designed to play games from previously established platforms, also increased options for consumers. Many of these projects were spurred on by the use of new crowdfunding techniques through sites such as Kickstarter. Notable competitors include the GamePop, OUYA, GameStick Android-based systems, the PlayStation TV, the NVIDIA SHIELD and Steam Machines.[44] Despite the increased competition, the sales for major console manufacturers featured strong starts. The PlayStation 4 sold 1 million consoles within 24 hours in 2 countries, whilst the Xbox One sold 1 million consoles within 24 hours in 13 countries.[45] As of December 6, 2016, over 50 million PlayStation 4 consoles have been sold worldwide,[46] and 10 million Xbox One units have shipped to retailers (by the end of 2014),[47] both outpacing sales of their seventh generation systems. In May, Nintendo announced that it had sold only 2.8 million Wii U consoles, falling far short of their forecasts.[48]

text:
Japan
North America
Europe
Units sold

Wii U
2012
2012
2012
13,360,000

PlayStation 4
2014
2013
2013
50,000,000

Xbox One
2014
2013
2013
10,000,000

text: Handheld game consoles

text:
The Nintendo 3DS is a portable game console produced by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Nintendo DS. The autostereoscopic device is able to project stereoscopic 3D effects without the use of 3D glasses or any additional accessories.[49] The Nintendo 3DS features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS series software, including Nintendo DSi software.[49] After announcing the device in March 2010, Nintendo officially unveiled it at E3 2010,[49][50] with the company inviting attendees to use demonstration units.[51] The console succeeded the Nintendo DS series of handheld systems,[49] which primarily competed with PlayStation Portable.[52] The 3DS competed with Sony's handheld, the PlayStation Vita.[53]
PlayStation Vita is a handheld game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment.[54] It is the successor to the PlayStation Portable as part of the PlayStation brand of gaming devices. It was released in Japan on December 17, 2011[55] and was released in Europe and North America on February 22, 2012.[56][57] The handheld includes two analog sticks, a 5-inch (130 mm) OLED/LCD multi-touch capacitive touchscreen, and supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and optional 3G. Internally, the PS Vita features a 4 core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor and a 4 core SGX543MP4+ graphics processing unit, as well as LiveArea software as its main user interface, which succeeds the XrossMediaBar.[58][59]

text:
Japan
North America
Europe
Units sold

Nintendo 3DS
2011
2011
2011
61,570,000

PlayStation Vita
2011
2012
2012
4,000,000

text: Media

text: Cartridges

text: Game cartridges consist of a printed circuit board housed inside of a plastic casing, with a connector allowing the device to interface with the console. The circuit board can contain a wide variety of components. All cartridge games contain at the minimum, read only memory with the software written on it. Many cartridges also carry components that increase the original console's power, such as extra RAM or a coprocessor. Components can also be added to extend the original hardware's functionality[60] (such as gyroscopes, rumble packs, tilt-sensors, light sensors, etc.); this is more common on handheld consoles where the user does not interact with the game through a separate video game controller.[61] Cartridges were the first external media to be used with home consoles and remained the most common until continued improvements in capacity in 1995 (the Nintendo 64, released in 1996, was the last mainstream game console to use cartridges).[62] Nevertheless, the relatively high manufacturing costs and limited data capacity compared to optical media at the time saw them completely replaced by the latter for home consoles by the early 21st century, although they are still in use in some handheld video game consoles and in the Nintendo Switch. Due to the aforementioned capabilities of cartridges such as more memory and coprocessors, those factors make it harder to reverse engineer consoles to be used on emulators.

text: Chip cards

text: Several consoles such as the Master System and the TurboGrafx-16 have used different types of smart cards as an external medium. These cards function similar to simple cartridges. Information is stored on a chip that is housed in plastic. Cards are more compact and simpler than cartridges, though. This makes them cheaper to produce and smaller, but limits what can be done with them. Cards cannot hold extra components, and common cartridge techniques like bank switching (a technique used to create very large games) were impossible to miniaturize into a card in the late 1980s.[63][64] Compact Discs reduced much of the need for cards. Optical Discs can hold more information than cards, and are cheaper to produce. The Nintendo GameCube and the PlayStation 2 use memory cards for storage, but the PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, and Nintendo Switch are currently the only modern systems to use cards for game distribution. Nintendo has long used cartridges with their Game Boy line of hand held consoles because of their durability, small size, stability (not shaking and vibrating the handheld when it is in use), and low battery consumption. Nintendo switched to cards starting with the DS, because advances in memory technology made putting extra memory on the cartridge unnecessary.[65] The PlayStation Vita uses Sony's own proprietary flash-memory Vita cards as one method of game distribution.[66]

text: Magnetic media

text: Home computers have long used magnetic storage devices. Both tape drives and floppy disk drives were common on early microcomputers. Their popularity is in large part because a tape drive or disk drive can write to any material it can read. However, magnetic media is volatile and can be more easily damaged than game cartridges or optical discs.[67] Among the first consoles to use magnetic media were the Bally Astrocade and APF-M1000, both of which could use cassette tapes through expansions. In Bally's case, this allowed the console to see new game development even after Bally dropped support for it. While magnetic media remained limited in use as a primary form of distribution, three popular subsequent consoles also had expansions available to allow them to use this format. The Starpath Supercharger can load Atari 2600 games from audio cassettes; Starpath used it to cheaply distribute their own games from 1982 to 1984 and today it is used by many programmers to test, distribute, and play homebrew software. The Disk System, a floppy disk-reading add-on to the Famicom (as the NES was known in Japan), was released by Nintendo in 1986 for the Japanese market. Nintendo sold the disks cheaply and sold vending machines where customers could have new games written to their disks up to 500 times.[68] In 1999, Nintendo released another Japan-only floppy disk add-on, the Nintendo 64DD, for the Nintendo 64.

text: Optical media

text: In the mid-1990s, various manufacturers shifted to optical media, specifically CD-ROM, for games. Although they were slower at loading game data than the cartridges available at that time, they were significantly cheaper to manufacture and had a larger capacity than the existing cartridge technology. NEC released the first CD-based gaming system, the TurboGrafx-CD (an add-on for the TurboGrafx-16), in December 4, 1988 in Japan and August 1, 1990 in the United States. Sega followed suit with the Sega CD (an add-on for the Sega Genesis) in Japan on December 12, 1991; Commodore stepped into the ring shortly after with the Amiga-CD32, the first 32-bit game console, on September 17, 1993. During the later half of the 1990s, optical media began to supplant cartridges due to their greater storage capacity and cheaper manufacturing costs, with the CD-based PlayStation significantly outpacing the cartridge-based Nintendo 64 in terms of sales. By the early 21st century, all of the major home consoles used optical media, usually DVD-ROM or similar discs, which are widely replacing CD-ROM for data storage. The PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One systems use even higher-capacity Blu-ray optical discs for games and movies, while the Xbox 360 formerly used HD DVDs in the form of an external USB player add-on for video playback before it was discontinued. However, Microsoft still supports those who bought the accessory. Nintendo's GameCube, Wii, and Wii U, meanwhile, use proprietary disc formats based on then-current industry standard discs -- the GameCube's discs are based on miniDVDs, the Wii's on DVDs, and the Wii U's are believed to be based on Blu-rays. These discs offer somewhat smaller storage capacities compared to the formats they are based on, though the difference is significantly smaller compared to the gap between the N64's cartridges and CDs.

text: Internet distribution

text: This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: All seventh and eighth generation consoles offer some kind of Internet games distribution service, allowing users to download games for a fee onto some form of non-volatile storage, typically a hard disk or flash memory. Recently, the console manufacturers have been taking advantage of internet distribution with games, video streaming services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and film trailers being available.

text:
Microsoft's Xbox Live service includes the Xbox Live Arcade and Xbox Live Marketplace, featuring digital distribution of classic and original titles. These include arcade classics, original titles, and games originally released on other consoles. The Xbox Live Marketplace also includes many different hit movies and trailers in high definition, and is accessible with a Xbox Live Free Membership. There is also an "Indie Games" section where small-time developers can buy a license and release their own games onto the marketplace. Such is their volume, these games are not viewed by Microsoft as standard and are instead rated by the public.
Sony's online game distribution is known as the PlayStation Network (PSN). It offers free online gaming, downloadable content such as classic PlayStation games, high definition games and movie trailers, and original games such as flOw and Everyday Shooter as well as some games that also release on Blu-ray Disc such as Warhawk and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. A networking service, dubbed PlayStation Home, was released in December 2008. Sony also announced a video/movie service and music service for some time in 2008.
Nintendo's Virtual Console service emulates games from previous-generation consoles and is available for Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U. Nintendo also has original content available for download through its online stores, the Wii Shop Channel (WiiWare), Nintendo DSi Shop (DSiWare) and Nintendo eShop.

In the case of the Wii console, Nintendo offers information and videos of upcoming software through the Nintendo Channel, which also allows users to download demos to the Nintendo DS through wireless connection. Other free services for Wii include the Forecast Channel, where people can access a weather forecast for cities around the world, News Channel, which provides users with the current world news in different categories such as International or Technology, and also the Internet Channel that allows users to browse the web and watch videos in sites like YouTube (which now has its own channel). The Wii Message Board also allows Nintendo to communicate with Wii owners with letters that include update information or contests on the Check Mii Out Channel, Everybody Votes Channel and games like Mario Kart Wii. However, in the summer of 2014, these services were discontinued, reportedly to let developers work harder on Wii U functionality.
Eight-generation Nintendo consoles (Nintendo 3DS, Wii U and later) takes advantage of the services provided by the Nintendo Network. This includes being able to purchase and download classic Virtual Console games, downloadable games (including most DSiWare/WiiWare downloadable games), downloadable game content, non-gaming apps, game demos, videos, and even certain retail games via the Nintendo eShop. Nintendo Network will allow content, online-gaming support, non-gaming interactions to be provided either for free or for a premium cost. Nintendo also offers its own social network in the form of Miiverse, supported by the Nintendo Network.

The Ouya has its games distributed entirely over the Internet, instead of using any physical media like a disk or cartridge. Users purchase games over the Ouya shop, just like PlayStation Network Store and the Xbox Live Arcade.

text: Bits

text: Each new generation of console hardware made use of the rapid development of processing technology. Newer machines could output a greater range of colors, more sprites, and introduced graphical technologies such as scaling, and vector graphics. One way console makers marketed these advances to consumers was through the measurement of "bits". The TurboGrafx-16, Genesis, and Super NES were among the first consoles to advertise the fact that they contained 16-bit processors. This fourth generation of console hardware was often referred to as the 16-bit era, and the previous generation as the 8-bit. The bit-value of a console referred to the word length of a console's processor (although the value was sometimes misused, for example the TurboGrafx 16 had only an 8-bit CPU, and the Genesis/Mega Drive had the 16/32-bit Motorola 68000, but both had a 16-bit dedicated graphics processor). As the graphical performance of console hardware is dependent on many factors, using bits was a crude way to gauge a console's overall ability. For example, the NES, Commodore 64, Apple II, and Atari 2600 all used a very similar 8-bit CPU. The difference in their processing power is due to other causes. For example, the Commodore 64 contains 64 kilobytes of RAM and the Atari 2600 has much less at 128 bytes of RAM. The jump from 8-bit machines to 16-bit machines to 32-bit machines made a noticeable difference in performance, so consoles from certain generations are frequently referred to as 8-bit or 16-bit consoles. However, the "bits" in a console are no longer a major factor in their performance. The Nintendo 64, for example has been outpaced by several 32-bit machines.[69]